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What will fill the gap?
Market data indicate that with the ban on Mancozeb there will be a super
developed area of ± 3 million hectares which will need an alternative
solution. Looking back at the different key buying factors of Mancozeb in
the quotes, one can already conclude that these 3 million hectares will be
replaced by several other solutions. To assess what can fill this huge gap, it
is necessary to understand who is deciding what to spray on the field. Here
three major parties who influence the product choice can be defined: the
farmer, the distributor and other influencers. All three categories are driven
by different goals and are trying to meet their own objectives when building
a Late Blight program.
THE FARMER:
In general farmers have two main drivers: minimizing the
cost per hectare and avoiding the risk of having bad results. Minimizing the
cost does not always mean spraying the cheapest products. For farmers,
Late Blight control is like an insurance: every farmer has a certain risk-
profile and will build his program in line with the risk he is willing to take. In
general farms tend to avoid all kinds of risk as much as possible and for crop
protection this translates itself into using products they have already known
and trusted for many years. This last driver cannot be underestimated and is
often the reason why new solutions are not taking big market shares in the
first season(s) of introduction.
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